Holy orders put their faith in cohabitation

Cohabiting monks and nuns - who have joined forces to pray, work and live together under the same roof - have hailed their mixed convent trial as a success.

The solitary religious life is probably a thing of the past, so their unusual arrangement, which has the blessing of the Vatican, is being held up as a model for other cash-strapped religious orders.

'This is a sign of the times. This is the future,' said one of its adherents, Brother Paolo. 'Men and women living a life of faith can create a powerful, positive energy.'

Most monasteries and convents remain strictly segregated but the Fraternita Francescana di Betania, which has six outposts in Italy and Switzerland, keeps its monks and nuns in separate cells where they sleep and meditate. However, they all eat, pray, work and socialise together.

The order's convent on the outskirts of Rome, where three monks and 14 nuns live, was set up a year ago and has been judged a great success, even if it has attracted curious comments from local people.

'Everyone together, under the same roof? Are you sure?' one resident was quoted as saying.

Communal living is unusual in Christian life, but it is being pitched as a way for cash-strapped monasteries and convents to survive. Many small religious orders are suffering financial crises that resort to them having to trade their honey, wine and soft toys over the internet to stay solvent.

Others have been reduced to taking money-making opportunities such as taking in guests or selling properties so that houses can be built on the sites. Overcoming the traditional segregation of the sexes could help address such problems and other Christian orders are said to be looking at the Betania community as an example.

Brother Paolo said no one had to live a cloistered life to live a holy life. He and his fellow nuns and monks, whose average age is only 33, surf the internet, study and stay in touch with their families. 'We get a lot of questions about it but we believe that men and women working and praying together is a very powerful force,' he said. 'There is absolutely no embarrassment about it for anyone involved.'

· Two Brazilian men were yesterday convicted of killing American nun and rain-forest campaigner Dorothy Stang.

Rayfran das Neves Sales and Clodoaldo Carlos Batista, two of five men accused in the killing of the nun in February, were found guilty by a jury of four men and three women in the northern jungle city of Belem.

Sales, charged as the trigger man, was sentenced to 27 years in prison, while Batista, who was charged as an accomplice, was sentenced to 17 years.